Operating in a virtual environment utilizing a computer is a pass-time that is gaining popularity. A virtual environment is an interactive simulated environment accessible by multiple users who can interact through an “online” interface that acts as a network client. Users can inhabit and interact in the virtual environment via avatars, which can be two or three-dimensional graphical representations of human type or other icons. Alternately described, an avatar can be a graphical representation that a user can select to represent himself/herself that others can see while in the same virtual environment. An avatar can take the form of a cartoon-like human.
Virtual environments have many different names. For example, a virtual environment can be referred to as a “metaverse,” a “3D Internet” a virtual world, and so on referred to herein as a virtual universe (VU). Although there are many different types of virtual environments, there are several features many VUs have in common. For example, many VUs have shared space which is a “universe” that allows many users to concurrently participate in an activity. The VU residents/avatars can traverse, inhabit, and interact with other avatars via 3-D graphics and landscapes. Thus, a VU can be populated by many thousands of residents or avatars. Often, the VU resembles the real world in terms of physics or physical laws, houses, and landscapes, etc.
Many virtual environments also have a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI can depict the environment or some form of “space” visually, ranging in style from 2D “cartoon” imagery to a more immersive 3D environment. In addition many virtual environments provide immediacy, interactivity, and persistence. Immediacy allows interactions between a user's avatar and the environment to take place in real time. Interactivity with the environment allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content. Persistence provides a continuous environment regardless of whether individual users are logged in.
An agent can be a user's account, upon which the user can build an avatar, and which is tied to the inventory of assets the user owns. A region can be a virtual area of land within the VU, typically residing on a single server. Assets, avatars, the environment, and anything visual can have UUIDs (unique universal identifier) that are associated with geometric data, among other data. The geometric data can be distributed to users as textual coordinates. Textures can be distributed to users as graphics files, which are placed within the boundaries of specified textual coordinates. Effects data can be rendered by the user's client according to the user's preferences and user's device capabilities. Lastly, socialization and/or community features allow and encourage the formation of social groups such as teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.
Residents can be personas or representations of the users of the VU, and residents can roam all about the virtual region by walking, driving, flying, or even by teleportation or transportation, which is essentially moving through space from one point to another in the VU, more or less instantaneously. The VU can also include things that do not presently exist in real life.
An avatar can have a wide range of business and social experiences while interacting with the VU. Such business and social experiences are becoming more common and increasingly important in on-line VUs.
There are many different services that provide VUs via the World Wide Web. For example, Second Life, Entropia Universe, The Sims Online, There, and Red Light Center all provide some form of VU, and these service providers have trademark rights in such names. VUs can also provide multiplayer online games such as EverQuest, Ultima Online, Lineage or World of Warcraft, and likewise such service providers have trademarks in such name. One popular VU mentioned above available is “Second Life” (Second Life is a trademark of Linden Research in the United States, other countries, or both). The Second Life client program provides its users (referred to as residents) with tools to view, navigate, and modify the Second Life world and participate in its virtual economy.
Second Life and other on-line virtual environments present a tremendous new outlet for both structured and unstructured virtual collaboration, gaming, exploration, advertising, and travel, as well as real-life simulations in virtual spaces. Virtual environments allow a user or viewer to see text on signs and low-resolution geometric renderings on television screens and movie theater screens. However, such a feature is less than perfect.